29 October 2004

Boom Or Bust?

New Zealand First trade spokesperson Dail Jones says New Zealand’s record-high trade deficit figures are no surprise given the Government’s increasing interest rates.

“Successive interest rate rises and an over-valued New Zealand dollar is crippling New Zealand’s export trade, while importers make the most of a good deal,” said Mr Jones.

“New Zealand is now sitting on an annual trade deficit of four billion dollars - its largest ever. September’s trade deficit figures alone show a 47.4 percent export deficit.

“While the Government is trying to ride on the back of an ill-fated, immigration-fuelled consumption-based economy, ordinary New Zealanders are failing to see any tangible benefits of the so-called economic boom. “It bears all the hallmarks of the old fashioned Muldoon era ‘Boom and Bust Economy’,” concluded Mr Jones.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>